Good news for Wisconsin job seekers

After struggles, state economists say labor market returning to normal

Sep. 20, 2013

Machinist Jeff Hanagan programs a CNC lathe machine for his partner who will work the next shift at Pinnacle Machine on Monday, May 21, 2012 in Grand Chute, Wisconsin. Seventy percent of today's jobs in Wisconsin require an associate degree. There is a skills gap and it is widening. The state is in a workforce paradox -- high unemployment, but employers (mostly manufacturers) are having a difficult time finding qualified workers. Sharon Cekada/The Post-Crescent / Sharon Cekada/The Post-Crescent

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Gannett Wisconsin Media

FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 17, 2012, file photo, job applicants wait for the opening of a job fair held by National Career Fairs in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, dropping below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

There’s good news on the horizon for Wisconsin residents looking for work.

Though the state’s labor market continues to recover from the Great Recession of 2007-09, Wisconsin economists say prospects for job seekers are looking up.

“The picture is improving significantly,” said Jeff Sachse, an economist for the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) who monitors the labor market in northeastern Wisconsin. “We’re seeing demand pretty much all over the place in fairly large numbers statewide. We have about 42,000 job openings on our Job Center of Wisconsin website right now.”

Wisconsin’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for July 2013 was 6.8 percent, unchanged from June and down from 7.0 percent in July 2012, according to the most recent numbers from the DWD and the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Across the U.S., the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for July 2013 was 7.4 percent, down from 7.6 percent in June and 8.2 percent in July 2012.

While Sachse anticipates Wisconsin’s unemployment numbers would remain relatively high in August because of the number of high school and college students looking for summer work, he predicts the jobless rate will dip below 6 percent in fall in many parts of the state, including the Fox Valley.

“That’s an indication that the labor market itself is getting back to normal,” Sachse said. “The real growth areas in the state are the Fox Valley into Green Bay. If you’re looking at central Wisconsin, there’s a lot of activity in Wausau around insurance as well as metal manufacturing.”

Wider range of manufacturing jobs

Economists continue to see strong hiring activity in manufacturing, especially in the Fox Valley and Sheboygan.

In central Wisconsin, economists are beginning to see an uptick in metal fabrication and machinery manufacturing jobs.

“We got hit pretty hard in paper manufacturing and wood product manufacturing over the course of the recession,” said Tom Walsh, a DWD economist who monitors the labor market in north-central Wisconsin. “But we’re now starting to see some other manufacturing sectors start to grow.”

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Manufacturing jobs across the state grew 3.3 percent in 2011 and 2.2 percent in 2012, according to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s state economic outlook issued this summer.

Growth in manufacturing employment remained strong even through the recession, but many job seekers have lacked skills to fill available positions.

“We call it the workforce paradox. We’ve got more jobs available despite that we’ve got high unemployment statewide,” said Kurt Bauer, president and CEO of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

“Manufacturers are willing to take risks on people who have the work ethic and are genuinely interested in the line of work. It’s just a lot of people aren’t familiar with manufacturing or have somehow been programmed that manufacturing jobs have all moved overseas, or they’re nowhere, dead-end jobs, which is not the case.

“By and large, the manufacturing we have in Wisconsin is advanced manufacturing. All the simple assembly has all moved offshore, so we’re looking at advanced manufacturing jobs that require skills, and when you have those skills, you’re in demand and you have job security.”

Though most manufacturing jobs in the state still require high skill levels, Sachse said companies are starting to fill a wider range of positions.

“What we’re seeing now is that the types of jobs opening up have really widened to the point where we don’t see companies just looking for welders, for example. They’re now also looking for entry-level production labor,” he said. “So what it indicates is that that pipeline of workers is kind of opening up so that people with lower skill-sets or people with lesser experience can enter into the industry now.”

Other job sectors see growth

Though construction work took a hit during the recession, economists say employment related to housing construction is on the rebound — another long-term indicator of the state’s economic health.

Sachse said the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has led to the creation of insurance and customer services jobs across the state, including at Humana, United Healthcare and Acuity. On Sept. 12, Acuity, a property and casualty insurer, announced plans to add 75 jobs at its headquarters in Sheboygan and throughout its 22-state operating region.

The company, which employs more than 950 people, is seeking to fill openings for processors and underwriters, programmers and technical support staff and claims professionals, among others.

“When you have health care reform coupled with a rapidly aging population, the demand for those products is going to be fairly high,” Sachse said.

The uncertainty over the implementation of ACA and Medicare reimbursements, however, has the health care industry in a holding pattern. Though demand remains strong for nurses and nurses’ aides, Sachse said health care organizations are not making large numbers of new hires.

“There are political issues right now that are driving a lot of uncertainty in health care and when those providers don’t know exactly what their bottom line is going to look like, they’re not going to be that eager to hire additional staff,” he said.

Technical colleges prepare students for in-demand jobs

Among the goals of Fox Valley Technical College’s new Health Simulation and Technology Center, which opened in September at the Grand Chute campus, is to ensure students and health care providers have the skills they need to fill jobs driven by federal regulation and legislation such as ACA, said FVTC spokesman Chris Jossart.

The $11.9 million, three-story building features a virtual hospital, classrooms, computer lab and occupational therapy assistant suites. The facility will provide students with experience in real-world situations and help caregivers keep their skills up-to-date as health care reform gets underway.

Jossart said TechConnect, a statewide online employment information system for recruiting Wisconsin Technical College System students and graduates for all types of employment, has hundreds of health care jobs representing various fields, including nursing, dental, occupational therapy assistant and medical assistant, among others.

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Also in demand are diesel technicians. There are 267 job openings listed on TechConnect, Jossart said.

“That industry has changed drastically over the years in terms of responsibilities,” he said. “It’s more high-tech, more computerized. We’re getting a lot more of those technicians also using soft skills, communication skills, because if a diesel shop is lean, that also means that the technicians are asked to be a point-of-contact for customers.”

Shelly Mondeik, vice president for learning at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau, said the demand for diesel mechanics has prompted the college to offer a diesel program within the next two years.

“That is coming from what the employers are seeing as skills gap in the industry,” Mondeik said. “It will provide employers with the diesel mechanics they would need to be working on all levels of diesel — the automotive and the semi tractor trailers.”

Northcentral Technical College also expanded its automotive program and developed an additional lab to accommodate the needs of the workforce, she said.

Meanwhile, the growth in manufacturing jobs in the region prompted the college to offer a one-year manufacturing technician program.

“The industry told us that they really needed a jack-of-all-trades, somebody who could come in and fill a little bit of the welding, a little bit of the machining, a little bit of the blueprinting,” Mondeik said. “It’s really a pathway for students to get started (in the manufacturing field).”

This fall, the college also added a new associate degree in welding, fabrication and robotics in response to manufacturers’ need for more highly trained workers. The program is at capacity, Mondeik said.

“Our manufacturing partners are definitely telling us that they need more individuals,” she said. “We’re doing everything we can from an educational partner to be able to provide them with the skilled workforce that they need. ... We really feel the technical college has the ability to eliminate or close that skills gap.”

— Sharon Hanuszczak-Froberg is the regional business editor for Gannett Wisconsin Media-East. She can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 304, or shanuszc@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @sharon_hf